Various concepts are known in the prior art, which estimate the position, posture or reclining position or position/pose of a patient on a hospital bed, motivated, for example, by the existence of unfavorable postures, which may adversely affect a healing or recovery process or represent a health risk. This may also include the patient remaining in a position or posture over a certain time period. For a patient confined to a hospital bed, his/her posture or pose depends on a setting or configuration of the hospital bed being used. Such patients are often in situations, for example, in accommodations intended for these situations, wards or hospital rooms in which corresponding monitoring, documentation and warning mechanisms are provided in order to avoid critical or incorrect postures. Some of the examples are facilities for assisted living, care facilities, home care spaces, old-age (senior) homes, hospitals and intensive care units.
In the area of care, there are adjustable or configurable hospital or care beds, which are available for patients at home or also in corresponding facilities such as hospitals. The available hospital beds are usually unable to make information available on a current configuration or use manufacturer-specific or own protocols for this.
Further background information can be found in the following documents:                Besl, P. J. (1992), “Method for registration of 3-D shapes,” in: Robotics DL tentative (pp. 586-606),        Fischler, M. A. (1981), “Random sample consensus: A paradigm for model fitting with applications to image analysis and automated cartography,” Communications of the ACM, pp. 381-395,        Hartman, F. (2011): “Robot control by gestures,” Thesis for Master's Degree, University of Lübeck,        Kong, T. & Rosenfeld, A. (1996), “Topological Algorithms for Digital Image Processing,” Elsevier Science, Inc.,        Shapiro, L. & Stockman, G. (2001), “Computer Vision,” Prentice-Hall,        DE 10 2014 100 548 A1 pertains to an ergonomic system for an adjustable bed system. Detected image data are compared with an image data bank in order to determine position and posture data of a patient,        DE 10 2004 021 972 A1 describes a patient bed, which is divided into partial areas and whose partial areas can be positioned, for example, by a plurality of vertically adjustable elements arranged in a matrix-like manner,        DE 34 26 444 A1 discloses a method for positioning a patient, for example, for irradiation. Image data are compared here with reference image data in order to create reproducible patient positions,        US 2009/0119843 A1 pertains to the observation of patient motions with cameras, and        U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,281 pertains to the monitoring of patients with a camera.        